🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <FRANL.92Nov14153854@draco.centerline.com>, franl@centerline.com (Fran Litterio) writes:
|> quest@iowegia.uucp (Steve J. Quest) writes:
|> 
|>|> steve@pepe.aero.org (Steve Sedlacek) writes:
|>|> 
|>|> |> A new Swedish study apparently confirms a moderate
|>|> |> correlation between living near high-power transmission lines and cancers.
|> 
|>|> 	It is also a known fact that there is a high rate of 
|>|> cancer among uneducated and poor people.
|> 
|> Fine so far...
|> 
|>|> The reason being, they 
|>|> simply do not have proper hygiene, sanitation, or eating habits.  
|> 
|> Whoa!!!  Strike hygiene from that list.  Unless by "do not have proper
|> hygiene" you mean "fail to wash hazardous/radioactive waste off they
|> hands after contact", dirt on your skin won't give you cancer.

|> franl@centerline.com   || Fran Litterio, CenterLine Software R&D

Dirt might not, but defoliants mixed in with the dirt might.  Why would
there be defoliants you ask?  Utility companies need to keep the vegitation
growth under control around those power lines.  You've no doubt seen swaths
of "clear cut" through forests and fields where power lines are strung.
And how do you think they keep the vegitation down?  Thus one reasonable
explaination I've seen it that high-power transmission lines ARE associated
with hazardous waste, it just doesn't happen to be E&M radiation, but high
concentrations of weed inhibitors.  This is probably not the sole cause,
but mixed with those other negative factors associated with being poor
it seems reasonable to assume one would see a statistical increase in poor
health (including cancers).

I'm intruiged by you're inclusion of radioactive wastes as a possibility.
Surely you're not claiming that high-tension lines cause radioactivity?
Or were you hinting that poor neighborhoods and power tension lines are
generally located in areas with higher than average radioactive
backgrounds?

-robert

 Robert W. Hatcher        | 256D Physics-Astronomy    | hatcher@msupa   (Bitnet)
 Software Tzar, Hunchback | Michigan State University | msuhep::hatcher (HEPnet)
 (517) 353-3008,-5180     | East Lansing, MI 48824    | hatcher@msupa.pa.msu.edu